College? Skating? Hughes hits crossroads

The demands of going after a degree would be sure to affect her odds of success on the ice, so the Olympic champ is in a quandary

December 15, 2002|By Philip Hersh, Tribune Olympic sports reporter.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Now what will Sarah Hughes do?

Go next fall to Harvard, to which she was admitted Friday as an early-action candidate, or one of the other colleges that might accept her?

That likely would mean the end of her career as a serious figure skating competitor, for the demands of being a student at an elite college and an elite skater would overwhelm even Hughes.

Defer college one or more years to concentrate on competition and the opportunities, both lucrative and simply interesting, that have come to her as an Olympic champion? Some will be evident in the next 10 days, with Hughes appearing Wednesday on ABC as one of Barbara Walters' 10 most fascinating people of 2002 and starring Christmas night on NBC in a skating special.

Try to do it all?

"Of course, it's nice to have a balance," Hughes said. "But skating is really a professional sport, very time-consuming."

Then there was a long pause after Hughes was asked whether this could be her last year as an Olympic-style skater.

"I've been thinking a lot about my future," Hughes said. "I didn't think I would be in this deep thought when I was 17.

"This will probably not be the last season, but I don't know. I'm not making any permanent decisions right now."

When her sister, Rebecca, was at Harvard, Hughes was certain it also would be her first choice. Now she wants to wait for the results of applications to other schools, probably including Columbia and Yale.

She does not even know what will happen the rest of this skating season. Having lost a few weeks of training time to a leg injury and off-ice commitments, Hughes remains uncertain about whether she will be prepared well enough to compete at January's U.S. championships.

The non-Olympic-style events Hughes did Friday in Auburn Hills and was to do Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, were her first competitions since Oct. 6. A strained leg knocked her out of Grand Prix series events in late October and early November.

"I haven't had the preparation or the confidence-building competitive season I am accustomed to," Hughes said before Friday night's event, in which she was second to Sasha Cohen. "I've always been very realistic. I don't have high expectations for this weekend but I feel really, really good to be here. I missed competing."

Hughes' last serious competition was the 2002 Winter Olympics, where she stunned the world by coming from fourth after the short program to win the gold medal. She pulled off every element in the most technically demanding program in women's Olympic history.

"I made my mark in what I wanted to do," she said.

The nature of her triumph brought Hughes so much attention she became part of a lyric in the latest incarnation of Adam Sandler's wacky Hanukkah song.

Were Hughes to step away from Olympic-style skating without a U.S. title or a more precious medal than bronze at the worlds, some might diminish that triumph as a fluke. Hughes feels no need to prove that it wasn't.

"If you look at my competitive career, I have been very consistent," she said. "It wasn't like I had a big roller-coaster career.

"I ascended and I was able to do something [at the Olympics] that involved a lot of work and planning. I was lucky that everything I did came together at that time. I don't think of that as a fluke."